How to Measure Value

I was asked recently by a client about the measurement of value. It is an excellent question as value means different things to different stakeholders. What a business regards as value could be very different from what the customer considers as value. The same goes for employees, business partners and shareholders. Before you can measure value, you need to do two things.

First, identify who is receiving the value of the work. Second, define what the value is.

Let’s take a look at measuring the value of succession planning. The purpose of succession planning is to ensure that when someone leaves, the business has another person ready to fill the role. Often, companies prepares a list of the individuals and stops there. There is more to it.

If you look at how the business benefits, the value is there is a smooth transition. You might want to measure the ramp up time for the new person to be 100% productive.

For the co-workers, filling the vacancy quickly would not require them to take on additional workload. To reflect that value, you can measure the amount of additional workload assigned to others in the interim.

In measuring the proper value that is meaningful, always think of the individual to be benefited.